


Maelstrom Beneath

by Kalira



Category: Naruto
Genre: Ambushes and Sneak Attacks, Canon Setting, Discord: Umino Hours, Fear, Gen, Implied Horrors, Monsters, Snow and Ice, Terrified children, Umino Hours Winter Bingo, Umino Hours Winter Bingo 2020-2021
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-12 12:28:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29010543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalira/pseuds/Kalira
Summary: Iruka-sensei and Mizuki-sensei took the class outside the walls to practise some of their winter sneaking and survival skills in a new environment, but they have much more dangerous lessons to learn when their trip is interrupted by an enemy ambush.
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi/Umino Iruka
Comments: 28
Kudos: 114
Collections: Kalira's Iruka Winter Bingo Stories (2020-2021), The Umino Hours Winter Bingo 2020





	Maelstrom Beneath

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the space 'Frozen Lake' on [my Iruka Winter Bingo board](https://kalira.dreamwidth.org/33520.html)!

“Are- Are you sure you don’t mind?” Hinata asked, and Sakura glanced at Ino meaningfully.

“Of course not.” Ino looped one arm through Hinata’s and between them they steadied her on the ice. “Stick with us for a bit.” Hinata smiled shyly, and Sakura was vividly reminded of when Ino had first swept in to pull Sakura along - and defend her.

Iruka-sensei called for their attention a moment later, and all of their classmates responded in a ragged chorus - some of them wobbling and at least two of the boys on their bottoms on the ice.

Sakura sniffed and patted Hinata’s arm absently, watching Iruka-sensei and Mizuki-sensei and listening closely. They were allowed a break to play on the frozen lake, but Iruka-sensei reminded them to be alert, and that this was an opportunity to practise in a different environment the skills he had been teaching them over the past weeks.

Sakura smiled and followed Ino’s lead, ducking away as one of the other girls swiped at her.

It wasn’t much after when she noticed Mizuki-sensei slipping off out of sight, fishing his cigarettes out of his pocket, and she rolled her eyes. He was always ducking out early or leaving them to work unsupervised if Iruka-sensei wasn’t around.

Sakura jumped as Ino shrieked angrily, spinning to see her with icy snow cascading off her hair and shoulders. She ran for one of the boys, and Sakura moved to follow when Hinata made a stifled squeaking noise.

Sakura turned back, mouth open to assure Hinata it was all right, but Hinata was looking elsewhere. Sakura followed her gaze and stiffened. “Iruka-sensei!” she yelled, eyes fixed on the unfamiliar ninja stepping out from behind a boulder near where Mizuki-sensei had disappeared.

“Sakura-chan?” Iruka-sensei took a step towards them, a reassuring smile on his face.

Hinata caught Sakura’s hand and she squeezed tight in return; Iruka-sensei paused, whirling as more unfamiliar ninja joined the first, pouring out onto the ice with them. Hinata dragged Sakura away, both of them slipping on the ice as they ran, and then the thick ice started to shudder beneath them.

Sakura screamed as Iruka-sensei only narrowly managed to dodge the swing of an oversized sword. It hit the ice instead, sending another powerful shudder through it that threw Sakura from her feet, Kiba falling a few paces away and skidding into her.

It took a few moments before Sakura could even see Iruka-sensei again, and then-

The ice cracked and Iruka-sensei disappeared into the water beneath, the nin who had just struck him _laughing_. Sakura was screaming again, she realised, and so were most of her classmates, even as they struggled to get up and keep running. Kiba snatched up Akamaru and hugged him close, both of them barking at one of the foreign ninja as he slid and stumbled further away.

 _Iruka-sensei_. Sakura’s eyes burned with tears as she stared at the ragged hole in the ice, remembering Iruka-sensei’s own warning lectures about hypothermia. She scrambled away as two of the foreign ninja closed in on the three of them where they were collapsed on the ice, realising too late that they were being herded further out onto the ice again. Closer to the broken ice where Iruka-sensei had fallen, and- and not come up again.

Sakura sobbed, feeling sick and dizzy with panic, and her vision was so blurry that she almost missed the rising suiton jutsu that snatched away one of the strange ninja. He disappeared off the edge of the ice and Sakura scrubbed at her face, gasping, clearing her vision just quick enough to see the ice crack again - _upwards_ this time, something surging beneath and a ragged line racing all the way across the lake to the shore.

It was beneath the feet of several more ninja, and it gaped wide, swallowing them up the way the first hole had swallowed up Iruka-sensei.

One of them dragged himself out over the edge of the ice, spluttering, but then Sakura lost sight of him as she dodged a snatch by the nearest ninja. She stumbled and fell to her knees on the ice, and froze as she saw something moving, a dark shadow, huge and fast, beneath the ice.

Sakura scrambled away, shrieking, then saw that Hinata wasn’t _moving_. “Hinata!” she grabbed at her friend, pulling at her, and Hinata whimpered, staring not at the ninja still approaching them but at the ice beneath.

“ _Hinata!_ ” Sakura screamed in her ear, and Hinata _wailed_.

Then the ice groaned beneath them and Sakura’s heart pounded as she recognised the sound of it beginning to break. Were they about to be thrown into the freezing water beneath, like- like their sensei?

It crashed apart, but _not_ beneath Sakura and Hinata. The ninja chasing after them tumbled down onto the ice, which broke apart further in glistening spikes, the dark water beneath surging upwards.

The two ninja disappeared into the raging water. There was a wide smear of bloody red where one of them had slid slowly, his body _dragging_ over the ice until the water closed over his head.

Sakura shuddered, eyes wide, and Hinata sobbed shakily beside her, fingers clutching tight to Sakura’s arm.

“Hinata?” Sakura managed thinly, her throat aching from the cold and from screaming. Her breath caught. “Mizuki-sensei! Help!” she cried, just making him out across the lake, stepping out from under the trees and wanting to sob. “Mizuki-sensei!”

Sakura wasn’t the only one calling to him, her classmates echoing her as they saw him as well. Mizuki-sensei froze, and then he _ran away_.

Sakura stared after him, fresh tears welling in her eyes. What- How _could_ he?

The ice made a painful creaking noise and Sakura pulled at Hinata, struggling to get her moving. Ino was shouting angrily, using some words that Sakura didn’t know, and some she _did_ and knew that Ino should _really not_ be saying.

Hinata clung to her as they tripped over Chouji, and Ino broke off her shrieking to steady them and pull Chouji to his feet, all four of them beginning to retreat from the crumbling edges of the ice towards the shore, now more slush than crisp snow, but solid beneath that. Their path was still blocked by the strange ninja, but . . . there were fewer of them now, and more of them were disappearing into the dark water all the time.

* * *

Kakashi faintly regretted leaving Mizuki as he had, unharmed and running headlong back to Konoha alone. Cowardly, snivelling _bastard_. Abandoning Iruka and the entire class of pre-genin to run for it and thinking only of his own skin. . . Kakashi had wanted to get to them as quickly as he could himself, though. No time to deal with Mizuki.

He could have left a clone, though, that wouldn’t have taken much chakra and hardly any time. . .

Kakashi shook his head. He could _deal with_ Mizuki later. Or Iruka could. That made him smirk despite the alarm fuelling his run.

Kakashi heard them before he saw them; deep splashes and cracking ice, wailing children and screaming adults. He grimaced as he bolted out into chaos. The lake was icy, of course - it had been frozen over for weeks, Kakashi had passed this way several times - but . . . the ice had been broken asunder, and chunks of it were scattered across the lake itself and the surrounding snow.

There were broad bloody streaks leading to the edge of the ice and down into the roiling water, which was . . . darker, perhaps, than it should have been.

Kakashi swept a look over the children, relieved to find that while Iruka was nowhere among his panicky students, none of _them_ were missing. He darted out onto the ice, flaring just enough chakra to keep his footing steady as he gathered up the few pre-genin who hadn’t yet scrambled off the frozen surface of the lake and pulled them away.

“Kakashi-san!” Ino grabbed hold of his sleeve and Kakashi caught her arm as she slipped, yelping. He pulled her onto more solid ground, and her hands closed around his forearm instead, clinging hard. “Oh- Kakashi-san, it was- They- _Iruka-sensei_ , he went into the lake and-”

Kakashi frowned, catching a cacophony of sobbing intermingled with hitching words from _most_ of the children. Though he could make out the voices from individual children, they didn’t make much sense. They were too terrified, Kakashi thought.

He looked back at the lake, but he could hardly get away from the children now _clinging_ to him on all sides; Ino had been joined by Sakura and Hinata, the former offering the most sensible explanations even through her streaming tears, the latter winding her fingers into the strap of the pouch on his thigh and _shaking_.

Kakashi crooned awkwardly, patting her hair and reaching out with the other hand only to have it seized by one of the boys.

Half the children were crying his name now, and Kakashi shifted stiltedly, assuring them they were safe and drawing them further away from the lake. A piercing scream echoed out across the ice and Kakashi grabbed the nearest boy before he could turn to look.

“Come on, this way. . .” Kakashi urged, glancing back at the lake and catching sight of a writhing, deep blue tentacle before it disappeared in a splash of dark water that left a thin red wash over the ice. “No, not there,” he interrupted as one of the girls began to wander in the wrong direction, a blank look on her face; Sakura grabbed hold of her and pulled her back, and Kakashi patted her awkwardly, “here we go. . .”

Kakashi shooed them further, as quickly as they could move - as _he_ could, with as many of them clinging to him as could reach - trying to get them out of sight of the massacre at the lake at least, even if the dying cries of the enemy nin followed after them.

They were fading out, anyway. Kakashi suspected there would soon be no more nin _to_ scream.

“Kakashi-san what happened?”

“ _Iruka-sensei!_ ”

“Did they get Mizuki-sensei?”

“Mizuki-sensei _ran away_!” Ino shrieked with a fierce look that reminded Kakashi a little uncomfortably of her father.

“Iruka-sensei went under the ice,” Sakura sniffled, “and he never came up again. Kakashi-san he-” She tugged at him, and Kakashi murmured soothing assurances as he nudged to keep the children moving.

“I saw something under the ice.” Hinata said, her voice barely a whisper, and Kakashi flinched, having a good idea _what_ the Byakugan had let her see clearly when obviously none of her classmates had. He rested a hand on her head - her hair was wet - and she ducked it closer to his hip, shivering. She didn’t speak again.

Half of the children were soaking wet, Kakashi realised as he tried to keep them in close and look them over for any hurts beyond bumps and bruises. Most of them were shivering, and Kakashi couldn’t be sure if it was from the cold, fear, or shock. He grimaced. They needed to get out of the forest and back to Konoha - and _inside_ , where they could get dry and warm.

But. . .

Kakashi glanced back at the trees now hiding the lake from view, then froze, heart thumping painfully. Iruka tipped his head down as he walked, tying his dripping hair back up, his breathing rapid and his flak vest missing - under the ice somewhere, certainly - but otherwise he looked little worse than ruffled. And soaked, of course, though _he_ wasn’t shivering.

“Are any of you hurt?” Iruka asked, resting a hand on Shikamaru’s shoulder, and the children started screaming again, all of them turning towards Iruka. Kakashi was _mostly_ sure it was not fear this time, and most of the children lunged for Iruka.

Kakashi was left with Kiba pressed against one side, and the three girls on the other - Ino hung on to his wrist, and Hinata still hadn’t released his leg. She was _whining_ breathily, her blank eyes wide, tucking herself partway behind Sakura.

“Iruka.” Kakashi said, relieved, and Iruka looked up at him with a smile.

“Iruka-sensei!”

“Iruka-sensei are you all right? What happened?”

“Mizuki-sensei _left us_!”

Iruka shushed the children as he moved among them, assuring them he was all right, patting their heads and shoulders. They steadied, most of them, though they clung to him desperately. Kakashi noted that Iruka did not seem to be having nearly the trouble Kakashi had moving with them hanging off him. Of course, he was used to it.

“Come along, class,” Iruka said, nudging at them gently as he approached Kakashi, “you’re all wet! We need to get you back to the village. Thank you, Kakashi, for looking after them.” he added, smiling warmly at Kakashi before turning his attention back to the children.

“Sensei, _you’re_ all wet.”

“I’ll be fine.” Iruka assured them.

“Iruka-sensei, what _happened_?”

“I saw. . .”

“How did you get away, Iruka-sensei?”

“We _saw_ you fall in the lake!”

“There- Something _grabbed_ \- The. . .”

“I used an old family jutsu.” Iruka said evasively. Kakashi eyed him, and Iruka met his gaze, wrinkling his nose at Kakashi before turning his attention back to the children. “No, no, that’s enough of that. No one is hurt? You can all run?” he asked, patting Shino’s shoulder as the boy sidled closer. “That’s good. Time to get moving, back home.”

Kakashi could only move slowly, taking care not to jostle the children still clinging to him, but Iruka soon had _all_ of them moving. Kakashi threw a pleading look at Iruka, indicating the children hanging off him - Sakura had taken a couple of steps away, but Ino’s hands were tight on his wrist and Hinata still clung to his leg; Kiba wasn’t holding on to Kakashi but was damn near underfoot, his very wet ninken clutched in his arms.

Iruka only grinned and shook his head before turning away from Kakashi again, urging the children on a little faster, taking one by the hand when he tripped. Iruka’s eyes continually swept over the gathered children, offering support and encouragement when any of them faltered but not letting them stop moving.

They couldn’t afford to stop, Kakashi was uncomfortably aware - the children were shocky and soaked and it was freezing, they needed to get dry and into shelter as quickly as possible. The pace Iruka had set felt painfully slow to Kakashi, but he could see that the children wouldn’t be able to manage anything faster; certainly they wouldn’t be able keep it up all the way back to the village.

They should still make it in good time, however, Kakashi thought, calculating. Iruka was watching over the children, but Kakashi couldn’t quite keep his own gaze away from Iruka. He was sure Iruka was all right, but he would feel rather more settled once he could confirm it in private.

That would have to wait, he was well aware, until Iruka’s class were all seen to and sent off safely back where they belonged.

**Author's Note:**

> In which the Umino hail from Uzushio, once upon a time, and their blood holds to a few of the things that made Uzushio ninja . . . Strange. ;)


End file.
